


No Soul To Bare

by aewgliriel



Series: If This Is Wrong [8]
Category: Star Wars Legends: Legacy Era - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-18
Updated: 2016-02-18
Packaged: 2018-05-21 10:16:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6047833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aewgliriel/pseuds/aewgliriel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Jaina vanishes, Kyp tries to find her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Soul To Bare

_Coruscant_  
  
“Jaina's gone,” Kyp Durron said, as he strode into the council meeting. He held up the datapad he carried. “Just like the others. But she left coordinates.”  
  
Luke Skywalker rose and took the datapad. He gestured for Kyp to take his seat.  
  
The younger Jedi Master slumped into his chair grudgingly. He itched to be off and going to those coordinates, but the council needed to discuss first. _Endlessly discussing_ , he thought with frustration.  
  
Corran Horn continued the presentation he'd been making when Kyp, late to the party, had interrupted. Five of the Jedi, Jaina included, had abruptly left their assignments and taken off for the Unknown Regions. The meeting was to discuss what to do to handle the sudden chaos.  
  
Jaina had been the only one on Coruscant at the time. She'd been testifying in a trial, and was supposed to be attending dress fittings. Now she'd run off, like the others.  
  
Kyp couldn't help being worried. He'd woken that morning to find some of her things gone and the datapad on their bed beside him. Along with the coordinates, there was a short message. All it said was, “I have to go. It's calling. I love you.”  
  
He rubbed his hand over his face. He hadn't slept well for the first half of the night, from her tossing and turning, and he suspected Jaina had done something to put him under when she'd left.  
  
"Fine," Corran was saying. "Where do we find a replacement for Zekk?"  
  
With a sigh, Kyp said, "The Solos should be finished on Borao soon. Maybe RePlanetHab will be patient if they know they're the Solos' next assignment."  
  
"Someone else needs to contact them," Mara said with a grimace. "It's getting so bad that Leia cringes whenever she sees Luke's face on the holocomm."  
  
"I can do it," Kyp said, with feigned cheerfulness. "I'm used to making Leia cringe."  
  
Mara snorted and said, “And you have a lifetime of it ahead of you.”  
  
He acknowledged the remark with a wry smile.  
  
The discussion turned towards the ar’krai the Bothans had declared on the Yuuzhan Vong, an intention to wipe out every one of the former invaders. Kyp, personally, didn't have too much problem with the idea of letting them, but he was used to keeping that to himself.  
  
Luke raised a hand, going still. The conversation died. “Excuse me. Perhaps we should continue this later. We don't want Chief Omas to know how concerned we are about Jaina's departure."  
  
Kyp made a disgusted noise. “Concerned doesn't come anywhere near it, Luke.”  
  
The Grand Master nodded, waving his hand. “Not when he's bringing Chiss with him.”  
  
Subsiding into his seat, Kyp exchanged a glance with Mara. He had specific reason to not like the Chiss, or their liaison to the Galactic Alliance, Jagged Fel. The human male was Jaina's ex, and he had his own reasons for not liking Kyp.  
  
Chief of State Omas and three Chiss entered. Kyp stayed quiet during their discussion, throughout which the Chiss repeatedly demanded that the Jedi reign their wayward members in.  
  
When the Chiss had left, Omas and the others began arguing. Kyp crossed his arms, offering only the comments he couldn't stop himself from making.  
  
Finally, Omas ordered Luke to go after Jaina, saying he was the only one who could handle her and drag her back, before he stormed out.  
  
There was a long pause. Then everyone in the room looked at Kyp as he stood. “I'm going,” he stated. “And no one is stopping me. No offence, Luke, but if _anyone_ goes after Jaina, it should be me.”  
  
“I wasn't going to suggest otherwise,” Luke said mildly. “Though I'm sorry that it looks like your wedding is being postponed.”  
  
Kyp sighed. “Can't exactly get married without my bride, can I?”  
  
\----------  
  
Kyp’s call to the Solos was not going well. Threepio kept putting him on hold, and he found himself--idly--threatening the protocol droid. “Threepio, put them on or I'll melt your circuits from the inside!"  
  
"Take it easy, kid. You're on," Han’s voice said. "And this had better be good."  
  
"When are you going to stop calling me kid?" Kyp demanded, more than a little exasperated.  
  
"Soon," Han said. Kyp knew the answer was really “never”. "Look, we're kind of busy here, so if that was all you needed-”  
  
It took monumental effort not to try to strangle his future father-in-law through the Holonet with the Force. “Sorry, but no. We're scrambling to cover positions. When you're done there, the council needs you and Leia to take over in the Maltorian system."  
  
"Nice of them to ask," came Han’s mutter.  
  
"That's what I'm doing now," Kyp pointed out. "The council doesn't give orders, especially to you two."  
  
"Could've fooled me," Han groused. "What happened to Zekk? Is he okay?"  
  
Kyp hesitated. How was he going to explain this?  
  
"Kyp?"  
  
“Zekk's fine," Kyp said after a moment. "But something came up, and he had to leave. Listen, we didn't want to ask you again, but this is important. RePlanetHab is about ready to start paying Three-Eye off."  
  
"I'll have to talk it over with Leia. Redstar's tribunal ought to be just about over, and we were hoping to catch up with Jaina for a few days."  
  
“Yeah, uh. That's not gonna happen.” Kyp sighed. “Something came up. She's not here.”  
  
That finally drew Han’s attention from whatever was going on on his end. “What do you mean, not there?”  
  
“She took off for the Unknown Regions. Put me in a trance, too.” Worry gnawed at his gut. “Luke and Mara and I are going to investigate.”  
  
“Three masters?”  
  
“I'd be going alone, but Omas ordered Luke to go.” He checked his wrist chrono. “And I should be leaving now.”  
  
“What aren't you telling us, kid?”  
  
Kyp gritted his teeth, then said, “The Chiss.”  
  
“What?” Han asked, then something happened on his end. “Stand by, kid, we're a little distracted here.”  
  
“Copy,” Kyp sighed. “Take your time.”  
  
He drummed his fingers on the desk, checking the chrono a second time. Luke wouldn't leave without him, but Mara might.  
  
It took a minute, but Han came back on. “What's this about the Chiss?”  
  
Kyp explained that the missing Jedi had apparently become involved in a border dispute with the Chiss Ascendency. When they got interrupted again, Kyp swore under his breath.  
  
“Han, I have to go. I need to find Jaina.”  
  
It was Leia who responded. “We can't take over, sorry. We're headed that way, too.”  
  
“... That's fine with me, but … Okay. I guess we'll see you if we see you.”  
  


* * *

  
  
_Eighteen months later_

  
  
Kyp pushed the mug of caf across the table to Jaina, sitting silently across from him. He wrapped his hands around his own mug.  
  
“So,” he said. “How goes the bug mind meld?”  
  
She shrugged, avoiding his gaze. “Fading. It's nice to have Zekk out of my head.”  
  
“Mm.”  
  
Jaina's shoulders hunched. She reached for the mug, probably more as a shield than anything else.  
  
He took a sip of the caf in his own cup, studying her face. She was thinner, somehow brittle, the way she had been during the Vong war. Kyp hated seeing that, hated it as much as the gulf between them.  
  
“The Ascendency said they located Jag,” he said after a few minutes of silence. “He's alive.”  
  
“Oh.”  
  
Kyp reached into his pocket, pulled something out and set it on the table between them. The shimmery blue stone of her engagement ring glowed in the kitchen light overhead.  
  
For a moment, he recalled the horror and confusion of waking to find her gone. The weeks and months of searching. The way she'd dismissed him when he'd found her, the gut-wrenching agony when he'd seen how close she was with Zekk, hearing her refer to the other man as her “mind-mate”. He'd had to retreat, best he could, to keep from physically breaking.  
  
“I found this after you disappeared. At first, I thought you'd dropped it, since it was on the floor, almost under the bed. I know now you took it off deliberately.”  
  
Her gaze flicked to it, then back to her mug.  
  
“Jay… It's been eighteen months, and I haven't been able to really talk to you. Not out there, not here. You were too… Taat, but even here, you're still gone. I walk into a room, you leave it. And you won't tell me _why_.”  
  
Jaina flexed her hands around the mug. “I know. I'm sorry. It's…”  
  
“If you had doubts, you could have talked to me. But you shut me out and then you left.”  
  
“Doubts?” She looked upon then. “About marrying you? I didn't have any. No. I left the ring here because I… It's so hard to explain. I couldn't resist Raynar. I tried so hard to. When I reached the point where I just couldn't- it was so hard to think straight. I intended to go, see what it was, and come back. I didn't know what I was heading into, and I wanted you to keep it safe. It was supposed to be on the bed, not the floor.”  
  
“Jaina, you put me into a Force trance, took your engagement ring off, and _left_. What part of that was supposed to say, ‘I'll be back, keep this safe for me’?”  
  
She shook her head. “I wasn't thinking, almost literally. Even leaving you the coordinates was difficult.”  
  
He tapped the ring. “So, instead of asking me for help, you ditched me and joined a hive mind with _Zekk_? Do you know how hard it's been? You could have come back. You _should_ have come back, when Luke called, but you refused. You chose to stay with _him_. And even now that you're back, you never came back to _me_.”  
  
She covered her face with her hands. “I couldn't, Kyp. Not after-”  
  
“After what? Look, if you want out, I'll give you that. It hurts, but if you don't want me anymore, just let me know.”  
  
Kyp reached across the table, lightly touching her hand. She let hers fall from her face, and he saw tears staining her cheeks.  
  
“I never wanted to leave. I wasn't in control of myself, but I didn't understand. And with Taat… I'm different, Kyp. I'm changed, and things happened…”  
  
His brow furrowed. “ _What_ happened?”  
  
She swallowed, shook her head. Then she reached for the caf and took a gulp of it. “I wasn't me,” she whispered. “I mean, I was, but the edges were so blurred. You know what it's like with our bond?”  
  
He nodded. “I've heard what the hive mind is like.”  
  
“Well, yeah. But it's… Your thoughts aren't yours, not entirely. And if there's enough sway from the rest… They had these… A rave would be a good start on how to describe it. But it's worse. And the pheromones… Your brain pretty much shuts off. I don't remember clearly, but I do know…”  
  
Kyp got a sick feeling in his stomach. “You and Zekk, huh?”  
  
“I don't remember,” she whispered. “But I think maybe we did.”  
  
“The bugs roofied you and you think you slept with Zekk,” he said flatly.  
  
“Why would you want me after that?” Jaina asked brokenly. “I betrayed you, right when we were supposed to be getting married.”  
  
Kyp stood from the table, chair squealing across the floor. He didn't know whether to rage or to throw up. Or which to do first, at any rate.  
  
He closed his eyes, pressing his fingers to the ridge of his brow. _Even breaths, Durron_ , he told himself. _The kid is as much a victim as Jaina if it happened._  
  
“Is he who you want now?” he asked finally. “I mean, I can understand if-”  
  
“No,” she said, voice full of horror. “No! Kriff, Kyp- I just spent eighteen months with Zekk trying to use the mind-meld to make me fall out of love with you, and it didn't work. I _love_ you. I may be messed up about a lot of other things, but that has never been in doubt, this whole time. And I know that I screwed up.”  
  
She got to her feet and came around the table. Kyp felt her reach for him, hesitate, then place her hands on his chest.  
  
“I thought you wouldn't want me anymore, if you found out. I'm not even sure it actually happened. But I can understand if you don't…”  
  
Kyp's laugh was incredulous as he dropped his hands. “Not want you anymore? I'm going to go to my grave wanting you. Do you know how _afraid_ I've been? I thought I'd lost you. I've barely slept for a year and a half, Jaina.”  
  
She looked up at him with those whiskey-coloured eyes, her fingers curling in the front of his shirt. “I'm sorry. I wish I could undo it all. I don't know what to do now. But no, I don't want Zekk. Or Jag, though I'm glad to hear he isn't dead in a ravine. The thought you wouldn't want me has hurt so much. I-”  
  
Kyp enfolded her in his arms as she started to cry. He pulled her over to the chair he'd vacated and sat, with her in his lap.  
  
“I love you, Jaina,” he told her gently. “And while I may not like the idea of you _maybe_ sleeping with Zekk while under the influence of bug whatever, I still want you. You wouldn't willingly do that, I know. You weren't yourself.”  
  
He kissed her forehead, stroking a hand over her hair. “I know you're still finding your way back. I haven't wanted to push. I didn't mean to make you cry. I'm sorry.”  
  
She hiccuped and pressed her face against his shirt. “Parts of me are broken. I don't know if I'll ever get them back.”  
  
“It's okay. I'm not going anywhere. I just thought _you_ wanted to end things.”  
  
“No, no, never!” She sat up a little so she could look him in the face. “I need some time, to get my head straight, but I still want to marry you, Kyp.”  
  
A tension he hadn't realised he'd carried seemed to snap, and his shoulders slumped. “Thank the Force,” he breathed. “I honestly thought losing you a second time would kill me.”  
  
Jaina shook her head vehemently. “No. I'm yours, and you're mine. All the bug mind control in the galaxy couldn't change that. I should know, it tried.”  
  
He chuckled. “You can have all the time you need, Goddess. Just… Don't leave me again.”  
  
“Never,” she breathed.  
  
Kyp gestured briefly and pulled her ring to him from where it sat on the table. He held it up where she could see. “Let's try this again, see if we can get it right this time. Jaina Solo, will you marry me?”  
  
“Try and stop me,” she said.  
  
He grinned, still feeling a little wobbly but on firmer ground now, and slid the ring on her finger, back where it belonged.


End file.
